The invention relates generally to robotic gripper assemblies.
Robotic gripper assemblies are known having finger pairs coupled to rotatable gears for moving the fingers toward and away from each other (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,598,942). The rotatable movement of the fingers, however, may not be suitable for a wide variety of objects having different shapes.
Other known robotic grippers have two fingers which linearly move in a single plane as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,529,237 and Japanese Pat. No. 53-18165.
A problem with present robotic grippers is that the two finger design is not suitable for handling a wide variety of irregularly-shaped objects. An additional problem is that the closure rate and resolution of the fingers are fixed. Accordingly, present robot gripper assemblies limit the flexibility of robotic systems.